And We're Back ...

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The trip back from Maryland on Sunday was, for the most part, uneventful. I've discovered that traveling on Sunday means a lot less traffic. Usually.

Four cars managed to careen into each other on the Cross Bronx "Expressway" which led to a half hour delay in that metropolitan area. Fun. You're on a roadway which is sunken beneath the surrounding terrain so you can't see anything.

We also had a large tractor-type truck to our front which meant we couldn't see what the delay was. On the upside, no one wanted to cut in front of me because then they would be behind the big truck.

The opening photo are The Nuke's boys, Finnegan (left) and Roberto (right). Those two guys are a blast to be around. Of course as they are two and four (respectively) they do tend to "get in a mood" from time to time. But for 75% of the time they pay attention, love to play and wrestle with Grandpa (I have the bruises to show for it), and harrass Grandma to spoil them. Which she does.

Last week saw the arrival of the Year of the Snake, Lunar New Year having arrived on the 29th of January. The grandkids learned a new tradition, the one where they bow to their grandmother (I don't count apparently as I'm not Korean, ain't no thang) in a rather formal way.

Roberto pulled it off as if he were to the manor bred. Finnegan didn't quite get what was going on but when he saw his brother receive cash money from his grandmother, he was bowing as if he'd grown up in the old Korean court. The kids are fast learners.

I daresay it will be a few days before Mom and Dad get the boys back to normal. I'm not saying that we spoil them ...

Oh wait, that's exactly what I'm saying. That's what grandparents do.

I also feel that it's incumbent upon Grandpa to tell the boys the legends of their ancestors. Though I think Roberto suspects Grandpa is pulling his leg when I tell him of my school days, where in the winter the walk to school was uphill, both ways, and one had to watch that the wolves didn't carry off any stragglers.

"Did that really happen, Grandpa?" he ask with a look of healthy skepticism upon his handsome visage.

"Sure it did. Ask your mother."

Who had this to say, "Grandpa sometimes exaggerates. There were no wolves in southern Vermont in the '60s."

Next time I shall regale them with tales of sweltering in a New England summer, "working¹" in their great-great grandmother's garden and fighting off sharks in the waters of Maine.

And no, Roberto, the dinosaurs were long dead when I was born. Don't believe everything your mother says.

Sigh ...

Back down in March for the kids' spring break, might involve a trip to Gettysburg as well. To stay in a haunted inn, maybe. I was rather excited at the prospect, Roberto wasn't sure what to believe.

Ah, to be young again.

¹ Work consisted of eating whatever we could get away with, fresh green beans, carrots straight from the earth, and making sure Grandpa didn't see us!

So...It Begins!

 Well, Campers, there's a bit of "firsts" involved in this post.  First, this is my first post done entirely on my Mac Laptop.  Still getting a bit used to it, and there are a lot of similar actions to my old PC, but there are also a lot of procedures that are done completely differently on the Mac.  Still does the same thing, however the keystroking is different.  So...Patience juvat!  

Yeah, right...Me? Patient?  

This is gonna be a fairly short post as there is another "First" in progress.  As I've mentioned before, we've made the decision to sell our property in "The Burg" and move to College Station to be closer to family.  That began yesterday.

You may remember this picture from a couple of posts ago.

 

 

 

Well, Saturday, Mrs. J declared "Fight's on" (a peacetime air to air radio call to start an air to air fight).  It was quite an engagement.  We had the dumpster delivered on Friday. My first thought was "Man, that's huge, we're not going to need a second one."

8' W X 10'H x40'L. Nah Never gonna fill it

 Remember what I said the "Junk expands to meet available space"?  I have complete proof that that's the case.

However, we have made considerable progress on the storage closet.  Yes, Beans, we were ruthless.  Unless we had a confirmed need for "stuff", military records, a walker etc. it was going to da dump!  

 Got some sweeping to do and a little more "disposing" and some replacing shelving at the far end of the area in the picture.  But, this will be the place where we store the stuff from the main house to declutter it and ready it to be sold.  

Still got the back porch to cleanse.  What little room we have left in the dumpster will undoubtedly be filled, Maybe, just maybe, we can get a smaller/less expensive dumpster.  In all likelihood, that's not gonna happen.  But, one can hope.

But, I've been sleeping well at night.  A little (OK a lot) stiff and sore in the morning, but "It 'tis what it 'tis".

Peace out y'all.

juvat

All Things Must Pass ...

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Well, it was a fun week, but it's time to head back to the old homestead. Not that I need to rush right back, but The Missus Herself has her circle of friends and they have plans. We missed Lunar New Year back home, we did celebrate in Maryland, so they need to make up for that. Lunar New Year is a very big deal in Korea.

I really need to commence the computer room re-org, something I look forward to as I need the space, I can barely get to my drum kit! So that will be among the first orders of business once we're back to "normal."

Normal ...

For the grandkids that means back to school without the distraction of Grandma and Grandpa catering to their whims, for the adults it means back to their regular work schedules. I am so happy to not have a "normal" anymore. I do what I want, when I want, within reason, of course. (Normal? Reason? What have you done with the real Sarge?)

Anyhoo, as you read this I'll be on the road. Sundays are normally a good travel day. At least it has been in the past. Hopefully we are within the "normal" window for Sunday travel.

Read the folks on the sidebar, talk quietly among yourselves, and ...

Well, you know the rest.

Be seeing you!

WFH

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Lately, there has been some fuss about people working from home (as opposed to "working from home," which I'll get to in a moment). Especially within the ranks of Federal employees.

A report came out, not too long ago, about the large quantity of office space in Federal buildings which is either not occupied at all, or under-occupied. People (think taxpayers) want to know where are all those people. Who's minding the store?

Well, in many cases, they're working from home. That is, they are not spending one to two hours a day commuting to DC, putting in an eight to twelve hour day (don't laugh, some do), then commuting back to their homes, again one to two hours. I might be a bit conservative on those numbers. Ask anyone who has driven in the DC area in rush hour. Or, more accurately, has sat in their cars praying that traffic will start moving, maybe even get close to the speed limit.

Been there, done that, no fun.

So the new administration wants Federal employees back in their offices. Some people cheer this, some do not, particularly those who have to go back to that daily commute.

Of course, another aspect to all this is trimming the size of the Federal government, which most will admit suffers from a certain amount of bloat. (We can disagree on the amount of bloat, but a fit and trim institution it is not.)

Once upon a time Your Humble Scribe was told, not asked mind you, to work from home. It was during the late "pandemic" of 2020. Fortunately I was what you'd call "between assignments." Which means I was getting paid to do nothing, other than hold myself in readiness should an assignment present itself (which it did eventually).

So every morning I'd get up at a reasonable time (usually eight-ish), fire up the computers (work and personal), check for any new emails (such as one saying "come to the office, you have an assignment"), and then head downstairs to brew up some coffee.

With coffee in hand, I would head aloft and sit down in front of my two computers, one work, one personal, and go through the "morning mail" as Buck was wont to call it.

Eventually I would take the opportunity to shower and shave and put on actual clothing (as opposed to sweats) so that should the call come, I'd be ready. If nothing new was in the offing, I'd head back downstairs and have some food.

Each day would pass with me sitting at the computers, monitoring the work emails, and futzing around on my personal computer. This lasted for a few months until the call came down -

"Sarge, we've got an assignment for you."

"Ah okay, that's awesome. When do I start?"

"Is Monday too soon?"

At this point I'm thinking that as I've been doing nothing for a few months, what could possibly prevent me from starting the new assignment immediately?

I mean do I answer with, "Oooh, that'll be tight, I'm not finished doing nothing yet. Monday is a little soon."

Nope, my answer was, "See you Monday!"

"Uh, you will have to come back to the office."

"I view that as a feature, not a bug. I'll be back in the lab on Monday."

And I went back, with a song in my heart and the wind in what's left of my hair. For you see, I hated working from home. It was stressful, it felt like work had invaded my beloved computer room. I believe fully in the separation of work and home.

That being said, I'm not against folks working from home, if they can still be productive.

I knew a number of folks at the old gig who "worked from home" (there's those quotes again). From what I observed, these folks spent the entire day phoning into (or perhaps Zooming into is more accurate) meetings. All day.

Were they a lead on the project these meetings were for? Sometimes, often they were not, somehow they had found the magic job where you could pretend to be important all day long without actually contributing a damned thing.

OTOH, there were people who were in those meetings for whom working from home (notice, no quotes) worked out well. They were able to contribute in a meaningful way and not have to be physically in the building. They would come in as needed and things worked well, for the company and for them. A hybrid situation if you will (some days at home, some days in the office).

There is a perception, among far too many people, that people who work from home are never productive and are just scamming their employer. All of them. Well, it ain't the case, some are productive, many probably in fact. But you know the old saying, "one bad apple spoils the bunch."

So the fact that some are playing the system leads to the perception that all are playing the system. When in fact it really means most managers do not have a handle on what their people are doing. In twenty-five years at my civilian gig I knew of three, maybe four, managers who would actually get off their asses and go to where their people were working to see what they were doing. The rest were of the "Send me your status report at the end of the week" type. Data would be entered in a spreadsheet and the "status" would be reported up the line as gospel.

Sigh.

Most of my work was classified, so I had to be in the lab. That applies to 99.99999% of all the people working on classified systems. (That 0.00001% consists of the one manager who just tracks status and budget, they don't need to actually see the system, just track that the numbers all line up. They exist and they are important.)

Am I exultant that the new administration is forcing people to go back to their offices?

No, I am not. A case by case assessment by competent management could be done to determine who should be in the office and who can work from home.

But this is the Federal government, competent managers are not that prevalent. Just look at how things have been for the past few decades. Does that look like someone with a brain is actually running things?

I think not.

Yes, the wheat needs to be separated from the chaff. Is this the way to do that (blanket ordering everybody back to work)? Maybe not.

But if it works, those who benefit from the ability to work from home will be able to return to that, the scammers will move on (hopefully), and things will be right as rain.

And if you believe that ...

I have this bridge in Brooklyn you might be interested in.

At a Loss ...

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Politics, I despise politics.

Everything in the news is politicized, or so it seems.

A horrible tragedy Wednesday night, a small commercial airliner collides with an Army helicopter, at night, both aircraft are destroyed. It appears that all the souls on board both aircraft are lost. Dead in the night in a fiery crash which ends in the cold waters of the Potomac.

Then the idiots (on both sides) start baying as to how this is some politician's fault.

Someone made a mistake, yes. But was it the air traffic controllers on the ground? Was it the people operating the two aircraft? I don't know, hopefully the NTSB will be able to determine that and at some point in the future institute some safeguard to prevent this particular scenario from happening again.

But you can't completely prevent mishaps. You just can't.

No matter how sophisticated the equipment, no matter how sophisticated the software controlling that equipment, and no matter how well-trained the aircrew, sometimes it just boils down to this ...

"Shit happens."

And when it does, people die, as in this case. Was this mishap preventable? Maybe, but as long as humans are in the equation things like this will occur.

People have lapses in judgement, people get distracted, people get tired, people miss  small details, there are a thousand things which can go wrong. That we don't have more accidents like this is something to think about.

Better equipment? Better software? Better procedures? Sure, those might help. Remember though, people put all that together. People.

Folks, we're the common denominator, there is no "they."

Pray for those who were lost. Pray for those families who will be in mourning. Pray for the sanity and the well-being of the first responders. Pray that it doesn't happen again.

But for God's sake leave politics out of it.

I cannot believe this crap.

/rant ...

Being Lazy

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It's something I'm good at, being lazy that is. Been doing it for a while now and have perfected my technique to almost the level of an art form.

Which is another way of saying that while down here in Maryland, on what is, in effect, a vacation, I am having serious motivational issues.

All I want to do is eat, sleep, and play with my grandsons. They seem to appreciate it.

I have a very long list of things I want to do when I get back to Little Rhody. Most of which involve board gaming. I have a crap ton of new games which I purchased while still gainfully employed. I call it my retirement project. This one (below) will require the most work:

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It is one of the many expansion modules of Commands & Colors: Napoleonics from GMT Games. I bought the original set probably more than five years ago. I haven't had the time nor the opportunity to start it. Now I do. As I also bought all, repeat all, of the expansion kits, I have my work cut out for me.

For each of the pieces you see on the map above is a wooden block, upon which one must place two stickers (one front, one back) which denotes the unit type (infantry, artillery, cavalry). I need to do that. With something like six of those kits (each with a large number of blocks), that's a lot of work.

Perhaps I'll affix stickers while listening to an audio book, which John Blackshoe recommends for long drives. I figure that would work here as well.

Another project is this:

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I have the French, the British, and the Prussian starter army kits, plus quite a few supplementary kits (Highlanders, 95th Rifles, Imperial Guard, plus extra cavalry). Those are all mini-figures which need to be separated from their sprues and attached to their bases. Ideally I would paint them as well. I still might do that.

So things to do, I have them.

First and foremost though is squaring away the computer room. The Missus Herself has set a very high priority on that one.

For once, I agree.

Besides which, I need the space.

For gaming.

Until then, I shall lead the life of a grandpa. It's a good gig if you can get it!

Adventures in Life

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When The Missus Herself and Your Humble Scribe stay at The Nuke's we have our own little hideaway in the basement. What is normally their movie watching room (even has a popcorn machine) becomes our bedroom. We even have our own bathroom just outside the room. It's very nice.

However it has one amenity that I have yet to use. Well, use intentionally that is.

'Tis a bidet.

This is not the traditional French standalone bidet but is of the "convert your toilet to a combo toilet/bidet" set up. It's very nice, the thing I like about it is the heated seat, very nice in the dead of winter it is.

However ...

So Monday night, The Missus Herself taps me on the shoulder, awakening me from "almost asleep" to something approaching consciousness.

"Umph, er, whazzup?"

"I think I left the rice cooker on."

Checking my watch, I see that it is past midnight.

"And you want me to do what at this hour?"

"Um, just thought you wanted to know."

Well honestly, I did not.

Now normally the rice cooker is pretty much on all of the time. I mean it's used to cook the rice, then maintain the rice in an edible condition for a few days. (Before marrying The Missus Herself I had no idea these things existed, having grown up on Minute Rice and Uncle Ben's - the rice cooker version of rice is, in my opinion, far superior.)

So to my half asleep mind, this did not seem like such a bad thing, I mean we're only gone for a week, right?

Then, as I tried in desperation to return to sleep, many horrid scenarios began to play out in my tired head. Ranging from the house burning down, to the kitchen smelling like burned rice for eternity, to the optimum scenario of nothing happening at all.

Needless to say, my sleep was fitful for the remainder of the night.

Around 0530 local I awakened to answer the call of Nature. Upon taking a seat (my aim ain't what it used to be) my brain said, "Hhmm, why isn't the seat warm?"

Reaching down for the controller (bear in mind, I'm half-asleep and not wearing my spectacles) I press something, hear a noise coming from beneath me, then the next thing I know ...

My butt is being "entertained" by a stream of warm water. Not an unpleasant sensation by any means, however it was rather, shall we say "unexpected."

Now I had no idea that the controller could be detached from its wall-mounted position. The one I was used to had a remote control thingie that sat in its own holder on the wall. The new one appears to be permanently affixed to the wall.

At some point in the process, my brain awakened. Though still distracted by the continuing stream of warm water against my nether regions, as it were, I eventually worked out, logically, that as the controls could not be seen or understood from the wall mount, it must somehow be detachable.

Carefully, not wanting to damage Tuttle's fine work in installing the new bidet seat, I gently pulled on the unit, which separated cleanly from the wall. Now that I could actually see the controls I managed to stop the water and turn the seat heat back on.

After that I returned to bed, to remember the original reason for me not sleeping. So I sent my next door neighbor a text asking if she would be so kind as to proceed to my dwelling and ascertain whether or not the rice cooker was indeed on. If it was, would she be so kind as to simply unplug it? Though there are clear instructions on the unit telling one how to switch it off, the aforementioned instructions are in Korean.

My neighbor doesn't speak Korean.

Later I heard back, the rice cooker had indeed been on, and was now unplugged. Not in an MTV sort of way but in a disconnected from a power source sort of way.

I lost sleep but on the upside, I now know how the bidet works.

Kinda cool.

Editor's Note: I do have a new vignette in mind but it involves war and I'm feeling rather peaceful these days. Not ready to write about war and death at this point in time. I'm sure I'll get back to it. Just not today.

Enjoying Life

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As I sit and look out the window of The Nuke's dining room I can't help but feel rather content. It's a sunny day, we're finally out of the deep freeze for a few days, and I'm getting to spend time with people I care about.

What more could one ask for?

The world continues to be insane (nothing has changed since Cain slew Abel, only the scale really) but the pockets of sanity far outnumber the pockets of insanity. But the pockets of sanity don't make the news, do they?

On the drive down to Maryland last Friday we saw snow on the ground the entire way. Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland. Seven states in 420 miles.

Uh Sarge, I though you said the distance from where you live to where The Nuke and her tribe live is 400 miles, give or take.

And yes, it is, usually.

But if you take the path that does not pass through the Bronx, i.e. travel up and over the Tappan Zee, then it's around 420 miles.

Was it worth the extra 20 miles? Why yes, yes it was.

I use Google Maps as my navigator (used to use Waze but Google bought that so there isn't much to choose between the two any more) and on Friday she (female voice, so she) directed me off I-95 and over to I-287. Ah ha! She wants me to take the Tappan Zee¹ route.

After getting off I-95 we drive a couple of miles and the navigator now wants me to get off this road and follow another. This, not being my first rodeo, was not done. It was just a different path to get to the George Washington Bridge. Now if I wanted to go that route I would have stayed on I-95. Sure, that part of the route can be slow. But am I in a hurry? No, I'm not.

An extra 20 miles but well worth it, the scenery going over that bridge is very nice. First time I've seen the surrounding hills with snow on them. Very picturesque, very lovely.

Even with all that, we still made really good time. (Though it should be noted, the folks who maintain the Garden State Parkway really, really need to repaint the lines. Couldn't tell in some spots if there were three lanes or five!)

We celebrated Finnegan's birthday on Saturday in fine style. Watched some football on Sunday, the games turning out the way I expected but not the way I wanted. One thing, with today's technology, why is the NFL still allowing the officials to determine the outcome of games. The Chiefs/Bills game was an effing embarrassment to the league, at least in my not-so-humble-opinion. It was a well played close game, decided (at least in my estimation) but a couple of really bad calls by the officiating crew.

Anyhoo.

Now we're just chilling while everyone else goes back to school/work. Finnegan though, has opted to skip daycare and do "grandma-care" this week. I mean can you blame him?

He's only two but he's a blast to hang out with. He and his big brother Roberto are big Star Wars fans, though they haven't really watched more than snippets of those movies. They both have toy light sabers and when Finnegan deploys his, he even does his version of this -

Mostly the "da-da-da-da da-da-da-da-da-DAAA" part and he really gets into it. He pitches his wee voice a little lower and even takes up a fighting stance with his light saber. Kid is a cutie, with a combative streak a mile wide. Gotta love it.

So we're chillin' and livin' large. Life is good.

I was going to go back through the first part of the Prequel/Prelude story while down in Maryland, only to discover that it's on my other computer. Sure, I could recreate it from blog posts and I still might ...

But that sounds far too much like work.

And I avoid that like the plague these days. 😎

I wonder why?

Be seeing you.

¹ The Tappan Zee is a broad expanse of the Hudson River, looks a lot like a big lake. I don't use the new name for the bridge.

Busy, Busy, Busy

 What a week!!!  Haven't been that cold since I went skinny dipping in Korea in January after cutting a hole in the ice!

Ok, that latter might be a  bit of an exaggeration. Well, at least the skinny dipping part was.  Most of the thermometer temps here were in the 20's and the "feels like" temps were in the single digits.  That had several big effects on us.

First, the fixing up of the front porch at our old house, now being transformed to a B&B that'll sleep eight, came to a complete halt.  Hammering fence nails, cutting cattle panels and sawing wood framing with numb hands didn't seem like a very safe idea.  

Mrs J, being the ever vigilant and talented project planner, shuffled the plan schedule and reprioritized the "Indoor Plan" to the # 1 priority and moved the outdoor plan to "Later" status.  It's still pretty cool outside, but tolerable.  However, the probability of percipitation this week is well above 50% every day.  That's the weather guessers prognosis and could change.  At which point, we'll reprioritize.

Again!

However, there is actually a lot of progress being made.  I can now see the top of my desk and now remember that it is made of wood and not envelopes, paper and notepads.  Who knew?  Cleaned out the closet in there.  OK, to be precise, I moved all the stuff that was in there into the office itself. 

 

 Found out that we have quite a bit more wine in that closet than I thought we did. Was a bit concerned that some of the older bottles (inherited from my Father's collection when he passed) might be a bit past their prime.

So, with Mrs J's permission, we tried one of the oldest ones with our Barbecued Hamburger, Corn on the Cobb and Home Fries.

Yes, Tuna, that's me exhibiting my Gourmand skills!

Oh, Man!  Was that 24 year old Pinot Noir good! Nay, Excellent!

Another treasure uncovered in the closet stirred quite a few memories,  There were several cardboard mover's boxes in the closet also.  They were full of pictures.  Some were fairly recent, pictures of our grandkids for example.

 

 

Others, well,  not so recent.  Pictures of my parents and grandparents dated from when my parents were about the age of my current grandchildren.  

Now that's a treasure!!

Reminder of a time when things weren't quite so pleasant!

Unfortunately, since Mrs J's standing order is to declutter and depersonalize the house (under the direction of our realtor), I've got to move those boxes out of sight in the attic for the time being.  The plan is to purchase a Skylight picture frame, and load the pictures into it.

Folks, those things are cool.  You, or anyone you add to the permission list, load pictures on it and they rotate through automatically.  We've had one for a few years and it's great.  We're going to get a second one as the pictures in the boxes are very numerous and the Skylight is limited to 8GB of storage.  The oldest picture gets deleted to make room for the newest.  So, we're going to start from scratch and monitor upload file size and see how we do since these photos are priceless.

Going to have to figure out how to balance, the "decluttering" the house with the scanning and uploading pictures.  Probably will need a new box for storing uploaded pics and only bring down a manageable number to handle that process without cluttering.  

Oh well, it'll keep me off the streets at night.

So, as I said, making progress.  Weather is supposed to be nice this week, so maybe the porch will be finished.  To do list for today is to call the Realtor and get his recommendations for a handiman to fix the back door on our current house and replace the shower stall in the old house (covered in hard water residue).  

I don't know if we'll be ready to post the "For Sale" sign in March like we/he wanted, but soon.

Hope you all weathered the weather last week safely.  

Oh and, one more, just for the embarassment factor.

Someone's first Christmas!

 

 

 Little J, back when he was "Little".

Peace out, y'all!

 

Homeward Bound

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Jan Kołodziej groaned and gripped his belly as the train hit another rough section of track. He had been hit, tended to by a Sani then hauled back to an aid station in very short order. He had no idea how lucky he was. His lower intestine had been perforated by metal fragments from his equipment, driven into his body by a Soviet rifle bullet. Had he not been carrying the spare barrel for his squad's MG-34, he would probably have bled out on the battlefield.

The bullet, fired from very close range, had been deflected by the spare barrel, but it had driven metal fragments into his body. The surgeons at the field hospital had patched him up and sent him back to the Reich. The medical staff had given him no more than a 75% chance of surviving.

Infection had been their biggest worry, but so far, Kołodziej's body was successfully fighting to stay alive. But the surgery had required the surgeons to cut into his abdominal muscles and Kołodziej had had no idea how much a man used those muscles.

Just sitting up required assistance. Sleep was nearly impossible as the German military was in the midst of a shortage of medicines. Pain killers were in short supply, morphine was used only on those in such pain as they would scream all night.

Though Kołodziej wanted to scream, he forced himself to bear the pain. One of the orderlies had asked him why.

"If I scream, the army might leave me out here to die. By bearing the pain, I show them I'm a fighter, worth saving."

But the real reason was a letter he'd received, dated August of 1941, it had been from his Elżbieta. The woman he loved more than anything in this world.

The last time he had seen her was in Warsaw, he had been wearing the uniform of the hated Germans. She had recognized him and turned away in shame.

Now, she had written, since that day she had learned much. Poles were survivors, pretend to bend a knee to the conquerors but use the time to prepare to rise up and throw them out. Her own brother had been conscripted into the German Army. Upon that occasion her father had talked long into the night with her.

Elżbieta Chlebek's father had fought in the Austrian Army in the Great War, when their portion of Poland was ruled by the Hapsburgs. As he had put it, "Better to wear an Austrian uniform and fight the Russians, your Jan is doing the same. He is fighting the Russians as well. It's all we can do for now."

Kołodziej had been told that he was being sent back to a hospital in Poland. The Army hadn't decided which one, he was hoping for Warsaw, that's where his Elżbieta was working. She was a nurse there. If only ...

Oskar Olson stepped ashore. He wasn't familiar with this part of Norway, it was much farther north than his home. But the smell of the mountains, the hiss of waves on the shore of the fjord, and the very air itself spoke to him of home.

He had left the country a disoriented conscript. Swept up in the defeat of the Norwegian Army, trapped behind enemy lines with a hodgepodge of British, French, and Norwegian stragglers, he had made it to England where he'd joined the Commandos. Now he was home.

According to the briefing, there was only a small garrison of Germans in the region. They were not frontline troops, but reservists, sent to Norway to free up the more fit troops for the cauldron of the Eastern Front. Perhaps forty men, a platoon, but the Commandos had brought far fewer than that.

Their mission was terror, pure and simple. Slip ashore, kill as many Germans as they could, then leave the way they had arrived, small boats. Head back out to sea and meet up with the Royal Navy destroyer that had launched them.

Olson was an explosives expert now. His job was to booby trap anything which the Germans used. The goal was to have German soldiers dying long after the Commandos had left.

"We might be killing Norwegians as well, Oskar. Do you have a problem with that?"

The Scottish officer had taken him aside to ask that question, he was young, but a good man, he cared about his men.

"Leftenant, I'd rather not kill my own people, but if the Germans hold the country, many more Norwegians might die. We've heard stories of hostages being taken, and killed, for every misfortune the Germans suffer. It's hard to kill one's own, but if we kill more Germans, I can live with myself."

Lieutenant Seamus MacDonald nodded and clapped Olson on the back, "Keep that in your heart all the time laddie, the mission is to make the Germans uncomfortable. Maybe even draw more of them in. If they're occupying Norway, they can't be fighting in Russia or North Africa, might also draw down the forces they have occupying France and Italy. Places we might have a mind to take back one of these days."

Olson nodded as the Lieutenant had directed the men to start loading the boats. They'd be on Norwegian soil within the hour.

Olson watched as the rest of the men came ashore then hid the boats. The night was quiet and bitter cold. Sound would carry a long ways and he had no doubts that the Germans would be indoors next to their fires. Though there might be a sentry or two, they would probably be more concerned with staying warm than watching for attackers.

The first sentry had died under Olson's knife less than 15 minutes later.

Olson had spotted him, pacing back and forth along the town's single, small pier. The man had stopped to piss into the harbor, then moved back to the shelter of the small shed at the foot of the pier. Where he had fallen to Olson's knife.

Lieutenant MacDonald joined the small group shortly thereafter, "Sarn't Magnussen, put out a perimeter, Ollie, get those explosives planted. I want the pier to go up about four hours from now, everything else is a booby trap, someone touches it, they die. Along with everyone around them. Go."

They rendezvoused with their destroyer just before sunrise. In the distance they heard the explosives go off which would destroy the pier. That was meant to draw the Germans to the harbor where they would trip the booby traps Olson had left behind.

The Norwegians were back in the fight.